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Mon 10 August 2026 19:45, UK
Some shows are so universally popular in the era that they’re made that they become part of the cultural fabric of society, and The X-Files was one of those shows in the 1990s.
Mulder and Scully, played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, were absolutely everywhere, along with Union Jack flag guitars, those annoying bleepy Tamagotchis and the genuine sense that the world would end at midnight on December 31st, 1999, due to some kind of computer glitch, which is insane when you think about it.
Regardless, Duchovny and Anderson were the pair you’d find on the walls of most student halls of residence, along with the Trainspotting poster and that one of an alien saying ‘take me to your dealer’, and the producers of the show struck TV gold with the compelling mix of horror, sci-fi and detective work that ran for 11 seasons between 1993 and 2002.
Each week, the FBI special agents would encounter all kinds of supernatural or government-sponsored conspiracies, while encouraging the usual kind of ‘are they or aren’t they’ discussions that tend to happen when you get any male/female onscreen duo with some chemistry. Anderson became one of the most lusted-after actors on the planet, while Duchovny was the cynical, sarcastic and cool Fox Mulder, the trench coat-rocking, unflappable in the face of monsters supernaturalist, and he was handsomely rewarded for doing so.
By the time the show was at the peak of its popularity, Duchovny was earning $2million per season, and The X-Files was hauling in awards; the most successful year being 1997 when it picked up Golden Globes for ‘Best TV Drama’ and individual gongs for both Duchovny and Anderson for their acting, to go with a host of Emmy nominations. But that year wasn’t all sunshine and roses for Duchovny, who made an attempt to translate his success with the show onto the big screen that went down spectacularly in a ball of flames.
The film was Playing God, and it was a crime thriller co-starring Angelina Jolie that saw Duchovny playing a surgeon addicted to drugs who gets struck off and decides to work for the Russian mafia instead, which, as plots go, is the kind of outline you write on the back of a napkin in Pizza Hut and think, ‘No that would be rubbish’.
And so it proved, as the film duly lost almost $10m at the box office, with the release being delayed due to some disastrous test screenings and Duchovny later admitting that making the film was a mistake. He recalled, “That was really tough. It was sad when it wasn’t received well, and I was disappointed. But I thought the movie was bad, so I didn’t disagree”.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
He continued, “If I had been a different person, I’d have said, ‘No, this script isn’t ready. It doesn’t work. Let’s just not do it’. But also, timing-wise, I had to get it done over a certain period. I didn’t have time to get the script to work because I had to go back to shooting The X-Files.”
While Duchovny never really seemed to manage to get himself into a properly successful feature film, with the possible exception of 2001’s comedy Evolution, he did go on to have plenty more hits on the small screen, notably Californication, which ran for seven seasons and saw him get glowing reviews for playing the hedonistic, womanising writer Hank Moody.
